An Okaloosa County, Florida nursing home assistant has been arrested for alleged elderly abuse of a disabled resident. Latoera O’Neal, a caregiver at Horizon Nursing Home, allegedly grabbed the victim by his feet and pulled him off the facility’s van, causing him to strike his head on the floor of the van, the running board and the pavement.

Eye witnesses told investigators they were shocked by what they had observed. O’Neal was immediately suspended and soon quit working at the facility. She is charged with one count of abuse of a disabled person, a third-degree felony. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The Azalea Court nursing home in West Palm Beach, Florida, has been fined $16,000 by state regulators after a patient was found injured on the floor with maggots crawling out of his leg cast. Additionally, state regulators faulted the nursing home for not having a comprehensive care plan for the resident that included caring for his broken leg. According to the report, “The 120-bed facility failed to provide the necessary care and services to a resident with the cast and wound of lower leg, resulting in an infestation of maggots.”

The nursing home was supposed to care for the patient’s leg wound and cast every three days. However, the nursing home could only provide documentation that it cared for the wound about once a week. Moreover, this is not the first issue that The Azalea Court nursing home has had recently. Earlier this year the nursing home was put on a “watch list” by state regulators because of its poor performance on recent inspections. The for-profit nursing home received just one out of a possible five stars as its overall inspection grade, including just one star for quality of care and quality of life measurements, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration.

In response to their poor rating given by state officials the nursing home stated, “We view the survey process as a quality improvement tool and are cooperating fully with regulatory agencies. Quality care is our highest priority. “Government ratings are a valuable tool, but they’re no substitute for a visiting a facility and meeting the staff.” Unsurprisingly, the nursing home has appealed their most recent penalty.

A former nursing assistant in Florida has been arrested for alleged elder abuse. Letitia Calderwood a former nursing assistant at Punta Gorda Elderly Care Center in Punta Gorda, allegedly kicked a 76-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s in the back and slapped her in the face.

Police reports indicate that on May 19, Calderwood and two other employees were helping the elderly woman get up from a fall in the bathroom. While struggling to help the woman, Calderwood kicked her in the lower back while she was still down and then slapped her in the face when she was lifted to her feet.

Calderwood has been fired from her job and is being held in jail without bail. She faces one charge of battery on the elderly and one charge of abuse of the elderly, both third-degree felonies.

A Kentucky nursing home has been cited for alleged exploitation and abuse of residents by staff members. According to documents from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the Bluegrass Care and Rehabilitation Center in Lexington, Kentucky has been cited by state officials who allege that the staff used personal cell phones to “inappropriately photograph and make audio recordings” of residents without their knowledge.

Apparently some staff members found it funny to attach songs with sexual lyrics to the photographs of residents and circulate them to other staffers. “There was no evidence that the facility had identified or trained staff that using residents’ pictures and/or recordings of a sexually exploitative nature were a form of abuse,” the citation said. “Interviews with facility staff, including aides, licensed staff and housekeepers, revealed this was a usual event that was not recognized or identified as abuse; therefore staff failed to report the abuse to their supervisors.”

The nursing home received a Type A citation, the most serious that a nursing home can receive. The citation specifically stated that the nursing home did not enforce its policy of staff members not being allowed to have cell phones in resident-care areas. Moreover, as a result of the recordings and photographs, the state considered seven residents to have been abused. A $6,550 a day fine was imposed by the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services because residents were found to be in immediate jeopardy.

A 52-year-old man who worked as a nursing home aide at the Northwoods Rehabilitation Center, in Troy, New York has been charged by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office for sexually abusing a 78-year-old patient. Robert Gundersen has been charged with felony sex abuse, misdemeanor forcible touching and misdemeanor third-degree sex abuse for the incidents, alleged to have taken place at the center between Dec. 15, 2007 and Jan. 7, 2008. Gundersen is already facing sex abuse charges from his employment at another area nursing home.

Gundersen is accused of sexually abusing a physically helpless female patient at the nursing home. According to police reports, Gundersen would allegedly touch the breasts and vaginal areas of the elderly patient in the evening hours.

As mentioned above, Gundersen is already facing third-degree sex abuse charges based on an incident alleged to have taken place between August and September 2008 while he was working at Eddy Ford Nursing Home in Cohoes, New York. In that incident, Gundersen allegedly forcibly kissed a young female wheelchair-bound patient with multiple sclerosis.

The charges against Gundersen are part of Cuomo’s ongoing investigation on health care provider abuse, which includes hidden-camera investigations at nursing homes across the state. So far, over 70 nursing home employees have been arrested or convicted as a result of Cuomo’s investigations.

Last week I wrote about Jaclyn Dawn VanWinkle, a former nurse’s aide at Madison Manor nursing home in Richmond, Kentucky who pled guilty to reckless abuse of an adult and was sentenced to 12 months in jail. The sentence was probated for a period of two years conditioned on her good behavior and agreement to cooperate and testify in any case involving alleged criminal conduct at Madison Manor. Well more abuse has been alleged at the home and two former nurses aides at the nursing home have been indicted on abuse and neglect charges. The charges stem from an investigation into an alleged August 2008 incident.

Amanda Sallee is charged with wanton abuse and neglect of an adult. Wanton abuse is defined as abuse that has no just foundation or provocation. The second aide charged is Valerie Lamb who is charged with reckless abuse and neglect of an adult in the case.. Sallee, who will be arraigned on May 15, is being held on $10,000 full cash. Lamb is scheduled to appear in Madison District Court on April 27.

Police have arrested a certified nursing home assistant for alleged elder abuse at a Texas nursing home. Shondra Rodriquez, 21, was arrested for allegedly abusing an 80-year-old woman on March 22, 2009, at the Castle Pines Health & Rehabilitation Nursing Home in Lufkin, Texas.

According to police documents, one of the nursing staff noticed the victim’s door was closed and her help light was activated. When, the worker went to check on the victim they saw Rodriguez striking the resident on her left hand. The worker saw blood on the bed and reported it to the hall desk. When other staff came into the room they saw bruising begin to develop on both of the victim’s hands and arms.

Rodriguez who admitted to “popping the victim,” and to holding her hands down and trying to fight with her left jail last week after posting $5,000 bail.

A former Kentucky nursing aide whose rough handling of a nursing home patient was caught by a hidden videotape has pleaded guilty to abuse. Jaclyn Dawn VanWinkle, a former nurse’s aide at Madison Manor nursing home in Richmond, Kentucky pleaded guilty to reckless abuse of an adult and was sentenced to 12 months in jail. However, instead of spending time in jail she will serve two years of probation. Moreover, she must cooperate and testify in any case involving an investigation into alleged criminal conduct at Madison Manor.

On Aug. 18, 2009, Van Winkle used rough and excessive force when moving Armeda Thomas, 84, from her chair to her bed and back again. The incident was recorded by a video camera placed in the room by Thomas’ relatives. According to state records, the videotape shows eight other nursing assistants at Madison Manor physically abusing Thomas and failing to feed and clean her. No other arrests have been made, but Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway said the investigation is continuing.

Thomas’ granddaughter, Deborah Hamilton, said she is starting an organization called the Armeda Foundation, named for her grandmother. The foundation will provide training, information and assistance to families of patients with dementia who are in long-term care centers. “If any good can come out of our experience, we hope that it will be that we can help others in similar circumstances,” said Deborah Hamilton.

Jason Lynn Pearl, 31, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, has been charged with felony caretaker abuse in connection with the alleged mistreatment of local nursing home residents. He was charged last week with two felony counts of caretaker abuse and one misdemeanor charge of verbal abuse, all stemming from care provided in his job as a certified nursing assistant at the Silver Lake nursing facility, a 92-bed home that is in the process of shutting down.

Charges stem from the wife of a resident who complained to police after she found a scratch on her husband. According to court documents, the elderly male victim repeatedly complained that Pearl stripped off his clothes and touched him inappropriately, spit in his face and threatened to hurt him. Upon further investigation, police learned that situations involving three patients at the nursing facility were videotaped on Pearl’s cell phone and had been seen by several witnesses before they were erased. The videotapes showed Pearl yelling at one elderly patient and violently jerking the shirt of another. The charges against Pearl are based on victim testimony, as well as the testimony of witnesses who saw the cell-phone videos.

Washington County Special Judge John Gerkin set bail at $100,000. He also set as a condition of Pearl’s bail that he not have contact with the victim or work in a nursing home

According to the Associated Press, over the past several years, nursing homes have become “dumping grounds” for young and middle-age people with mental illness. This has proven to be a prescription for violence. Younger, stronger residents with schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder are living beside frail senior citizens, and sometimes taking their rage out on them. For example, Ivory Jackson, 77, was killed when his mentally ill roommate smashed him in the face with a clock radio.

Numbers obtained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show nearly 125,000 young and middle-aged adults with serious mental illness lived in U.S. nursing homes last year. That was a 41 percent increase from 2002, when nursing homes housed nearly 89,000 mentally ill people ages 22 to 64. Most states saw increases, with Utah, Nevada, Missouri, Alabama and Texas showing the steepest climbs. Younger mentally ill people now make up more than 9 percent of the nation’s nearly 1.4 million nursing home residents, up from 6 percent in 2002.

Several forces are behind the trend, among them: the closing of state mental institutions and a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds. Also, nursing homes have beds to fill because today’s elderly are healthier than the generation before them and are more independent and more likely to stay in their homes. “Sadly, we’re seeing the tragic results of the failure of federal and state governments to provide appropriate treatment and housing for those with mental illnesses and to provide a safe environment for the frail elderly,” said Janet Wells, director of public policy for the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform.

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